


Meet Cute

by rewmariewrites



Series: Harry Potter Shorts [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Banter, Fluff, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry is a Little Shit, Healer Draco Malfoy, Hospitals, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Draco Malfoy, Pining Draco Malfoy, St Mungo's Hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: It may be important to note that Draco Malfoy meets the love of his life when he is twenty-five years old.Well. In the spirit of fairness, that statement is both technically inaccurate and incredibly vague. Draco isn’t just twenty-five years old, when he meets the love of his life, he’s also in his fourth year of the Healing Programme at St. Mungo’s, and this isn't actually the first time they've ever met.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Harry Potter Shorts [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1192591
Comments: 11
Kudos: 194
Collections: Drarry26





	Meet Cute

It may be important to note that Draco Malfoy meets the love of his life when he is twenty-five years old.

Well. In the spirit of fairness, that statement is both technically inaccurate and incredibly vague. Draco isn’t just twenty-five years old, when he meets the love of his life, he’s also in his fourth year of the Healing Programme at St. Mungo’s, and this isn't  _ actually _ the first time they've ever met. 

Draco first met Harry Potter in Madame Malkins in August of 1991, when Draco was a brat and Harry was timid and both of them were eleven years old. But that doesn't count, because Draco didn’t actually realize that was _The Harry Potter_ until weeks later, nor did he realize that the timid child in too-big clothes was the love of his life until _years_ later. 

Their other first meeting was that time Draco tried to shake Harry’s hand on the steps to Hogwarts in September of 1991, when Draco was a brat but Harry was brave, and they were still both eleven years old. Except that whole situation went… poorly, to put it lightly, so it  _ definitely _ doesn't count. 

Now that Draco's really thinking about it, the next six years they spent at Hogwarts probably shouldn't count either,  _ especially _ the part where Draco’s parents volun-told him to participate in the reformation of a fascist terrorist group which, at its  _ most benevolent  _ state, tortured and permanently disfigured their members. 

Draco is not colouring himself as blameless by recognizing his parents’ part in his indoctrination to Voldemort’s cult. Quite the opposite - Draco is entirely aware of his complicity in Voldemort’s mad quest for blood purity and world domination, in ways that will haunt him for the rest of his life. He knows every moment where an opportunity for goodness passed him by, in intimate detail. He might be an Entirely New Draco now, but it took him much too long to realize he needed to change.

To be specific, it took a stint in Azkaban, a year of closely-monitored probation, and a large number of therapy sessions to admit that he wanted to change, and that he needed help to do it. 

He has come to realize that his youth was full of wrongdoings and he is  _ sorry  _ for them. He will  _ always _ be sorry, and it will never be enough. Nor should it be.

(That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been forgiven. Not by everyone, but that’s only to be expected. Draco  _ truly _ harmed some people, and he knows that no one is obligated to accept his apologies just because they’ve been offered. It’s not all bad news, though: Granger and Weasley have forgiven him, if their letters are to be even remotely trusted. He’s particularly close to Luna Lovegood now, as well - they share a fondness for radishes that quite transcends the Ravenclaw-Slytherin divide, as well as a relative, three generations back: Ozymandias Black.)

Still, this is all  _ terribly _ beside the point.

The point is, Draco meets the love of his life, _properly,_ when he’s two hours shy of completing the final shift - a graveyard shift, of all things - of his rotation in the Auror’s Wing at St. Mungo’s. It’s two o’clock in the morning, Draco’s been working for ten _slow_ hours, and he’s just trying to get through these next two without dying. He gets two days off after this if he can simply _survive the night._

To Draco’s left sits his attending, Abernathy. Abernathy is a horrible, crotchety wretch of a man who hates everyone who breathes. He’s also the foremost Curse Damage Healer in Britain, if not Europe entirely. While he’s not as much of an out-and-out bully as Severus Snape was, his standards are so high and he’s still so generally unpleasant that he sometimes makes the residents cry.

Right now, though, Abernathy is spinning his empty mug in his hands, idly quizzing Draco on various curse-specific diagnostic spells. Draco answers back as thoughtfully as he can whilst also trying to keep his eyes open  _ and _ hold his own mug of coffee in a way that doesn’t burn his fingerprints clean off his hands. 

It’s  _ boring _ . It’s boring, and stagnant, and Draco’s just wondering if he can take two more hours of this without succumbing to the urge to throw himself out of a window when the  _ shriek _ of an Emergency Portkey tears through his lethargy and snaps him into crisis response mode. 

As one, Draco and Abernathy slam their mugs on the nearby table and dash across the room to where the two Aurors are slowly slumping to the floor. One Auror is slung halfway across the other’s shoulders, it looks like both of them are bleeding out onto the floor, and the still-functioning Auror is saying in a high, anxious voice, “The curse came out of  _ nowhere _ \- he got hit in the torso but he’s still breathing, and - and - I wasn’t able to stop the bleeding, there wasn’t enough  _ time  _ -”

Abernathy is already Levitating the incapacitated Auror to a stretcher, fully ignoring the panicking man on the floor. After a cursory once-over where Draco determines that the panicked Auror isn’t actively bleeding out or wholly broken, Draco joins Abernathy by the more grievously wounded Auror’s side, and together they weave through their complicated list of diagnostic and stasis spells. They complete them in silence - the only sounds in the room are the quiet, rushing noises of their incantations, and the other Auror’s quiet stuttering. When five of twelve spells react poorly - pulsating red before hovering over wounded areas - Abernathy takes a moment to  _ tsk  _ ill-naturedly before he’s whisking the patient away.

“The SSA is too emergent to be teachable. If I need more hands I’ll send for you, so be prepared. Deal with the other one in the meantime, and watch for DTR. Don’t be afraid to sedate.  _ And get me Dorinda,” _ he barks over his shoulder at Draco as he wheels the injured Auror away. 

Draco takes a moment to conjure his Patronus to send it after Dorinda, Abernathy’s favourite Trauma MediWitch, before turning back to the Auror that’s been left behind. Another moment’s consideration - and a pointed flick of his wand - has a fresh chart, a bottle of Dittany, and a Calming Draught bobbing along behind him as he approaches the man kneeling on the floor. Carefully but firmly, Draco herds him gently towards an empty bed, flicking the curtains shut behind them.

“I should be there when he wakes up,” the Auror says, hands opening and closing on air in his lap. It’s all he’s been saying since Abernathy Levitated the other Auror out of his grasp.

It’s probably not best practice, but well… Draco ignores him. This man needs to be properly examined for physical wounds before they can treat his mental ones. If Draco needs to be on standby for surgery, he doesn’t have enough time to do both.

Keeping his voice low, calm, and pleasant, Draco chatters absently while he performs sanitizing charms on his own hands and arms. “Good evening, sir. If you don’t mind, I’m going to be performing a number of diagnostic charms on you. Some may feel rather unpleasant; cold and intense tingling are normal, so please brace yourself. If you’re able to be as quiet as you can, that will help the process go as quickly as possible, and then I’ll be able to update you on your partner’s condition.”

Without waiting for a response - though the Auror’s quiet muttering does cease - Draco and starts in on his incantations. 

He continues to chatter through the process, more habit than anything else, to keep the injured man as calm as possible. It takes twelve basic diagnostic spells and four more specialized spells before the Auror speaks. It’s longer than Draco thought he would last, honestly. 

_ “Fuck _ that’s cold!” The Auror yelps, twitching under Draco’s careful attention.

“Hush now, I only need to concentrate for a minute more,” is Draco’s immediate response, tone still mild. His mind is a million miles away. He hasn’t even really looked at his patient yet - he’s much more concerned with the colours his diagnostic charms are turning, and with double-checking the results the Observe-Me-Quill is recording in the chart. 

_ Tsk- _ ing gently, he murmurs a correction at the Quill, and is quite pleased when it immediately obliges and fixes its mistakes without a fuss. Some of these quills can be downright belligerent when corrected - it’s nice to finally find a mild-natured one. He might just nick it.

_ "Malfoy?” _

“Yes, indeed.” Three more spells and the patient can have his full attention.

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” 

“Mmmm, quite right.” The haze over the patient turns from a dark blue to a cheerful yellow as Draco switches spells. Good. Only one left.

“I don’t - what the  _ fuck,  _ Malfoy!”

And oh, okay, the patient is getting a little  _ worked-up,  _ it seems.

Draco finishes his final charm, and finally looks at the man he’s been treating. It's the first time he’s actually looked  _ at  _ his patient all night, and not just the injuries or the spells around him.

Unfortunately, looking causes  _ all the breath to leave Draco's body. _

Bright green eyes. Dumb circular spectacles. Lightning-shaped scar cutting across a dark forehead, eyebrow, eyelid, and cheekbone.

Oh,  _ fuck.  _ Oh,  _ shit. _

“You’re  _ Harry. _ Potter. Harry Potter. Auror Potter?”

Harry nods, just the once, looking a little bemused, if still completely taken aback.

_ Merlin’s sweet baggy Y-fronts, Draco, get yourself together! _ “Auror Potter, hello. Welcome to St. Mungo’s.”

As evidenced, Draco is a truly unflappable human being. Even on his worst day he is a fountain of eloquence; under no circumstances could one shake his refined demeanor, or his regal bearings. He has never once, in his entire life, been reduced to stuttering and stammering like a buffon.

(Denial is such a sweet mistress.)

“Wow. That experience was actually more painful than being Crucio-ed,” Harry says, gingerly leaning back on his hands and giving Draco a skeptical look.

Ah. So, _ this _ is how Draco Malfoy dies. It’s not entirely a surprise, as he always thought Harry would be the one to take him out, eventually. Dying of  _ embarrassment _ at Harry's hands, however, is something Draco had never actually considered. How  _ wrong _ he was. 

Hopefully Blaise and Pansy will remember him fondly.

(They won’t. They’ll laugh at him forever, like the absolute traitors they are.)

After a prolonged moment where Draco valiantly tries to remain dignified while he flounders, he sets his jaw, raises his chin, and resolutely raises his hands towards Harry, palms out.

“Is it alright if I touch you?” Draco asks, voice blessedly steady, “I’ve completed the diagnostic charms, but I still need to give you a physical examination. It is your right to ask for another Healer at this time.” 

As a Malfoy - as a former _Death Eater_ \- Draco is painfully aware that sometimes patients do not want his help, regardless of whether he's the best one for the job.

Harry just nods his head. It makes his stupid, shaggy, too-long curls bounce about in a way that’s entirely unreasonable. 

“I’m fine,” Harry deflects, jittering and glaring at the curtains around the bed like  _ they’re _ what’s keeping him from chasing after his injured friend, rather than being, you know,  _ injured himself, _ “You should probably go help with O’Leary. He was way worse off than me because of the curse, it was Sec - Sectum - _ fuck.  _ You know the spell. I’m sorry.”

Oh. Draco hadn’t ever realized that Harry would be just as traumatized from that time they almost killed each other in Myrtle’s bathroom.

“Potter,” Draco interrupts, viciously squashing the urge to touch Harry  _ (to pat his broad shoulder, or stroke his impressive arm, or hold his dark, strong hands), _ “Abernathy - the man who took your friend - he basically runs St. Mungo’s entire Trauma department. He’s the best-ranked Trauma Healer in almost all of Europe. If Severus Snape could handle my Sectumsempra wounds on Myrtle’s bathroom floor with nothing but an improvised incantation, the best-qualified Healer in Europe can handle your friend in the best-equipped Wizarding hospital in Britain.”

Draco chooses not to mention the three weeks he'd had to spend in this very hospital, recovering from his and Harry's machinations. He also neglects to mention the extensive scarring left over from Severus' relatively inexperienced spellwork; had Snape waited and taken him to Pomfrey, Draco could have come out unscathed. It doesn’t bother him, not really, but he thinks that it would bother Harry in a way that makes Draco feel uncomfortably tingly inside.

As it is, curse scars are tricky - Draco was simply unlucky. Harry's friend will likely fare much better than Draco did. He predicts a week in the hospital at most, and little to no scarring, which is more a testament to Abernathy’s skill than the severity of the injuries involved.

When Harry makes an unconvinced face - as if he can  _ read Draco’s mind _ \- Draco can’t help but scowl. “For Merlin’s sake, you're stubborn. Here, do you see this bracelet? It’s big and green, you can’t possibly miss it.” 

Draco shoves his wrist right in Harry’s face, making Harry go a little cross-eyed. It’s cute. It’s  _ stupid.  _ Harry’s entire face is  _ dumb. _

Harry nods, and Draco retracts his arm like it’s been scalded. He spitefully ignores the way Harry cocks an eyebrow in response.

“If this bracelet starts to chime,” Draco says primly, fiddling with it, “I’ll need to leave immediately, because that means Abernathy needs me in surgery. I  _ will not _ otherwise leave this room, not until I’ve done every necessary examination and determined that you are both stable and healed enough to discharge.” 

Harry just looks at him with those gigantic puppy-dog eyes, looking almost at the edge of tears. He's twisting his fingers around and around themselves in a way that looks painful, and Draco physically cannot stop himself from sticking his nose in the air and saying, “I will also have you know that my patients are  _ not _ allowed to panic or otherwise inconvenience me until I have discharged them from my care.” 

He doesn't actually do that, because that would make Draco a  _ terrible _ Healer, but self-control is something that Draco has always lacked when Harry is near, especially when it comes to getting the last word in.

“I can panic whenever I damn well please. I’m Harry fucking Potter,” Harry snarks softly, ducking his head just slightly. Draco sends a pointed look at the way Harry's fingers are still pinching and twisting over themselves, and Harry blushes, stops pinching, and has to try hard not to smile. 

It’s a dazzling expression, one that lights up Harry’s face from within. His eyes crinkle at the corners, his lips twitch, and he _ never once _ looks anywhere but into Draco’s eyes.

Draco inhales deeply, and on the exhale he looks very carefully anywhere but _ at Harry. _

He's at work, right now. He can scream about this moment later, with Blaise and Pansy and a bottle - or two - of wine. Merlin knows he'll need the drinks.

“May I examine you now?” Draco asks, directing his question to the corner of the hospital bed.

He feels more than sees the way Harry nods.

Quickly, efficiently, and a tad  _ spitefully, _ Draco Banishes Harry’s uniform to the chair across the room and Summons a hospital gown onto a temporarily naked Harry. He has to stifle his own grin at the way Harry yelps, “A little warning next time, fuck!”

“So sorry,” Draco placates, biting his cheek between words, “You see, I’m still in training, so I  _ forgot _ to verbalize my next step to prevent you from startling. It’s easy to forget these things when one treats an uncountable number of completely average men with completely average injuries in a single day.”

_ “Completely average,”  _ Harry mutters ill-naturedly, and Draco has to duck his head so Harry can’t see the way he swallows a snicker.

“I’m going to manually check your lungs now,” Draco says after a moment of desperate struggle, “I’ve done this with a diagnostic charm already, but we like to check twice. You’ll feel cold metal on your back -” Draco slips the earpiece on and the metal against Harry's back, and is immediately gifted another spite-filled yelp from Harry “- oh hush, it’s not that bad. If you could breathe in deeply for me? Wonderful. And out? Good. Again… good.”

The Observe-me Quill records Draco’s murmured results, and Harry says, “You know, this is weird. This is  _ really _ weird.”

Draco can’t help but bristle, just a little. “What, that I’m training to be a Healer?”

“No,” Harry says immediately, defensive, but then he grimaces. “Well, okay, yeah _ ,  _ a  _ little,”  _ he amends. “But you being nice to me is weirder.”

Draco feels his spine go ramrod straight. “I have changed since the war, you know,” he snaps.

Harry immediately blushes from sternum to hairline. It looks nice, darkening the already brown skin there, more evident on his chest which is usually covered by the Auror uniform. Not that Draco notices, of course. He's being very professional, after all. 

“No, I know that! I didn’t - I wasn’t - I wouldn’t imply that you hadn’t! I just meant - we’ve always had a sort of dynamic _.  _ That’s what Hermione always calls it, an  _ antagonistic dynamic.  _ Well, she calls it a lot of things -  _ uncomfortable sexual tension  _ is a big one, but - oh Merlin. Why did I tell you that?” Harry buries his face in his hands, but that can't hide the way his ears have gone so red they look sunburned.

And just like that, Draco’s foul mood dissipates. It dissipates so quickly, in fact, that he gets a little dizzy and can’t quite catch himself before he sputters out, “She - uh - she - sexual  _ tension?” _

Harry raises his face to scrub sheepishly at the back of his neck, refusing to look anywhere near Draco. “She has… theories. About why I was so obsessed with you in sixth year. About why I was so obsessed with you  _ generally,  _ actually,” he admits.

Draco is - to quote the youths -  _ shook.  _ Blaise and Pansy have their own theories about his and Harry’s antagonistic relationship, of course, but  _ Slytherin _ schemes are one thing. That Granger had the same theories is another thing entirely. It makes everything feel a lot more real, if Draco is entirely honest with himself.

Luckily, he is not in the habit of doing so.

Instead of dealing with that new information, Draco chooses to ignore it and move on to actually healing the few relatively minor lacerations Harry managed to obtain in the line of duty. None of Harry's wounds are particularly serious, so Draco'd been putting it off in case Abernathy needed another pair of hands. This far into the surgery, though, another person would probably do more harm than good. If nothing else, healing Harry’s scratches should help take up the last hour and fifteen minutes of his shift.

There’s a shallow cut across Harry’s left shin that’s not serious, but is still a little too deep for comfort, so Draco starts there.

They fall into a comfortable silence. Well, as comfortable as it could possibly be. Draco is entirely too cognizant that he's touching - fairly intimately, all things considered - the man who happens to be both his nemesis and his long-time romantic infatuation. 

It's fine, though. Super fine, even.

“How long do you have left? In your training, I mean.” Harry asks, at some point. 

Draco’s looks up from the bruising around Harry’s ribs, and it takes him a second to shake off the intense concentration of coaxing blood and tissue into accelerated healing, but when he finally registers the words he takes a quick look at the clock. 

“Approximately fourty-five minutes, assuming I pass the exam I took the day before yesterday. I should know by tomorrow or the next day.”

“Fourty-five - are you serious?” Harry exclaims, hissing as he jolts his side.

“If you don’t calm yourself,” Draco snaps, “I will leave these ribs bruised and make you heal naturally. I’m healing them out of the good of my heart, you know.”

Harry’s mouth opens and shuts like a fish for a moment, before he decides that pouting and murmuring “Yes, sir,” is the best course of action.

(If Draco has to take a moment - or five - to compose himself after  _ Harry Potter  _ calling him  _ sir _ , no one has to know.)

And so it goes. Draco does his job, carefully Healing wounds that are all just this side of too-serious, and Harry sits there quietly, seeming content to let Draco lay hands all over his body. By the time Draco has moved on to the myriad of small scratches across Harry’s face, Harry has relaxed almost to the point of slumber.

“You smell like… lemons?” Harry asks, out of the blue. Draco's not quite so unprofessional that he flinches at the sudden noise, but it's a close thing.

“I do indeed. My soap is lemon scented. I'm sure that's why you are unfamiliar with the smell," Draco murmurs. He's leaning firmly within Harry’s personal space, mostly occupied by the stubborn little cut that's refusing to disappear from his favourite part of Harry’s scar. The lightning-bolt spans most of the right side of Harry’s forehead, but the little bit that pokes through to the underside of Harry’s right eyebrow has always been Draco’s favourite. Some sort of debris has nicked the edge of the ridge of scar tissue, and just  _ will not heal _ \- 

“Hey! I shower!” Harry whines.

“The abysmal state of your hair has always suggested otherwise,” Draco murmurs, fully perplexed and a little bit frustrated by this stubborn little cut. He's definitely not distracted by the way his hand looks splayed across Harry’s dark cheek, or the way he can feel Harry smiling a little, or-

“It probably won’t heal, you know.” Harry says, snapping Draco out of his ill-advised reverie.

“What?”

“It’s the curse scar - it doesn’t like to be healed, I guess? I’m not sure if non-Voldemort scars are the same way, but nothing heals nicely around them.” Draco’s eyes drift to the scar in the middle of Harry’s chest. There are a few thin, barely-visible scars along the edges of what looks to be an oval burn mark, almost like someone took razors or fingernails to it. Draco wonders if it's from the infamous Slytherin locket, the one that the Golden Trio supposedly destroyed somewhere in the British wilderness.

Harry laughs gently - nothing more than a sharp exhale, really - and murmurs, “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.”

Draco can feel the way Harry’s words huff across his face. He looks back at Harry’s face, intending to say something - something - he doesn’t quite know. Something comforting, maybe? Or cutting? 

Instead they lock eyes, and for a moment Draco is back in (first or second or third or fourth or fifth or) sixth year, locking eyes with Harry by chance across the expanse of the Great Hall. Back when all Draco wanted was to have his hand on Harry’s face like this, and be close enough to count eyelashes, or freckles -

Oh,  _ oh _ , fuck Draco with a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Draco lets go of Harry’s face like it’s burning him and steps back, because tonight he’s Harry’s  _ Healer _ not some tortured, lovesick sixteen-year-old.

And just in time, too, because Abernathy chooses that moment to step into the room. Draco quickly takes his place just behind Abernathy’s shoulder, and listens intently as Harry is updated about his partner’s condition. It’s a good prognosis - he’ll spend a day under observation at the hospital, and a week on strict bed rest at home. His family has already been updated; Abernathy takes the next fifteen minutes to carefully check over Draco’s work on Harry's wounds. 

At the end of it, Abernathy nods, pats Draco on the shoulder, and says, “We got your test results earlier. Well done, Healer Draco. Go home, rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Draco watches Abernathy walk out, too shocked to respond. He stares at the door as it swings on its hinges, unable to move his body until it stops moving. Even then, Draco stands there for a moment longer, almost expecting Abernathy to flounce back into the room, cackling like a Muggle witch, and take it all back.

That… doesn't happen.

Suddenly desperate, Draco flails a bit and turns around, sending a shocked and - pleading, maybe? - look at Harry.

Harry's just sitting on that little hospital bed, knees pulled up and sitting cross-legged. He's grinning fiercely, so wide that Draco thinks it might split the Auror’s face clean in two. Harry's giggling a little, presumably at Draco, and he's flushed from the apples of his cheeks all the way down to his sternum, like before.

"Well, I guess I'll be the first one to say it," Harry manages around his stupid,  _ stupid _ grin, "Congratulations, Healer Malfoy."

Draco cannot help the way he sinks his head into his hands and laughs,  _ hard.  _

He also can't help the way he thinks  _ oh fuck, I'm in love. _

_ ~ _

(It takes two years, one first date, and 419 sexually tense letters for Draco to tell this story at his and Harry's wedding. It's worth the wait.)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually go on Tumblr anymore, but feel free to comment! I always read them!


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